Prolific HAIR composer Galt MacDermot has got you all in check with a quirky, rhythm-centric take on funk that has flipped the wigs of hip-hop heads from Busta Rhymes to Run-D.M.C.
You may not recognize the name Galt MacDermot, but you're familiar with his music. Think of the rolling bass of Nasty Nas' "Halftime," the bassline, horns and harpsichord of Artifacts' "C'mon wit da Git Down," the melody to Run-D.M.C.'s Pete Rock-produced "Down with the King" or the baroque backdrop to Busta Rhymes' "Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check." All these songs and more have appropriated compositions either played or written by MacDermot, one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century.
MacDermot first gained worldwide fame for the funky score he wrote for HAIR, the hippie musical that revolutionized Broadway in the '60s. By the time 1970 rolled around, over 600 casts, symphonies, singers and jazzers - including Dizzy Gillespie and the now sample-famous Tom Scott - had covered HAIR's hits. HAIR tied together every musical influence in MacDermot's life - the love of jazz from his youth in Canada, the dynamics of rhythm that he observed while a student in South Africa, his work as a studio musician in New York and his keen acceptance of the funk music that began to develop in late-'60s America. However, though two generations inextricably link his name with HAIR, MacDermot feels that the musical does not adequately represent his talents. "Broadway has a style - and it's not me," he states. "The essence of my music is in rhythm."
Rhythm on the one that is. Because of HAIR's monstrous success, MacDermot was able to release a great number of records that would come to represent his quirky take on funk. He worked on major-label projects, such as the instrumental HAIR album First Natural HAIR Band (UA, 1969) and the soundtrack to Ossie Davis' Cotton Comes to Harlem (UA, 1970), and he also released small press runs of obscure records like Woman is Sweeter and The Nucleus on his own imprint, Kilmarnock Records.
MacDermot's music, unlike that of funk legends like James Brown, rarely relied on vamps, the short introductory musical passages often repeated several times in song. "I deal in melody - I like nothing better than to vamp, but not while I'm in the studio," MacDermot says. Indeed. Take a listen to the recently reissued Woman is Sweeter and catch earthly melodies that run the gamut from funky and fun ("Space") to morose and deliberate (the brooding "Cathedral"). But MacDermot's compositions never become so esoteric as to lose the interest of the listener. This is in part due to his monster rhythm section, which in the past included both drum masters Idris Muhammad and Bernard Purdie, and bassists "Bad" Bascomb and Jimmy Lewis. "I always try to get the maximum rhythmic value in a song," the composer cryptically states. "And if you have a solid rhythm section, they bring that value out of the music you compose."
MacDermot first learned of the sampling of his music when he was asked to clear the use of HAIR's "Where Do I Go?" for Run-D.M.C.'s 1993 comeback attempt "Down with the King." Initially, MacDermot feared that he would disapprove of producers and rappers recontextualizing his compositions, but he discovered the complex beauty of rap music when he received a tape of "Woo-Hah!!" in the mail for sample clearance. And he has conversed with many active members of the hip-hop generation about the lasting power of his music. NYC-based beatmaker the Mighty VIC of the Ghetto Professionals regularly visited MacDermot's Staten Island home witha veritable all-star list of friends, including the Beatnuts and Lord Finesse. The 71-year-old composer felt a common bond with VIC, almost 40 years his junior: "VIC was consistent - he pointed out progressions in my music that he liked, " MacDermot recalls. "I knew exactly what he was talking about - I liked them too! I thought, 'Here's a guy who is hearing what I heard 30 years ago - and he appreciates it.' For a while, I thought that I was out of sync with the rest of the musical world. But people like VIC showed me somewhere along the way, emotion in music got lost. Hip-hop helps save the feel that we once achieved."
Eothen "Egon" Alapatt
from URB Sep. 2000